News from HWPS

Dear Families,

Welcome to this week’s newsletter.

Oh What a Night – Late March 2022!!

The sports field was a sea of color, light and movement as families settled in for an evening of fun.

As the sun set over the city, 800+ members of our community joined together to celebrate our first whole school event in 12 months. Picnic dinners, popcorn, soft drinks and ice-creams were on offer for the hungry hoards. A hush came over the sports field once Sing 2 started to play. Special thanks go to Mel Dieudonne, Cath White, Meagan Sumer, James Harding and their team of volunteers for their tremendous efforts in organising the event. It was no mean feat! Their planning ensured that the set-up, pack up, as well as the ordering and serving of the food and drinks on the night all went to plan. Special thanks also to our Grade 6 Leaders who ran the stalls selling popcorn, ice creams, cold drinks and raffle tickets.

Thank you all for joining us for such an amazing evening.

HWPS Lapathon - Congratulations Everyone

What a fabulous morning we had for our annual Lapathon. St James park came alive with our students decked out in their House Colours running, skipping, walking and chatting their way around the track.

Special thanks to Kirsty, Eliza and the House Captains for their planning of this event and to the teaching staff for their enthusiastic participation.

We also had terrific support today from our parent community – recording laps, cheering and encouraging the children. It was great to have you join us.

There will be some very tired children tonight.

Break Times at HWPS

Recess and lunch breaks are always busy times in schools as students burn off energy or catch up with their friends between learning sessions. Whilst some children like to play active games or build up their fitness completing laps of the sports field, others like to sit and chat or read with friends.

There is also a range of different lunchtime activities that our teachers offer for our students to enjoy. Lunchtime activities include; aerobics, choir, library, park time for Grade 3-6 students where they can safely play football and chasing games, and Pokemon / Footy Cards Club.

Every recess and lunchtime we have teachers supervising the three designated areas of the school yard. Their role is to ensure that students are playing safely and are interacting with each other in a positive and respectful manner.

We have clearly established playground expectations: *Be Safe. *Be Responsible.

*Be Respectful. Teachers consistently reinforce these expectations with their classes and when on duty. Students are also reminded regularly to speak to a teacher if there is an incident outside in the yard.

When incidents do occur, they are recorded and followed up by the appropriate staff member.

Teachers follow a clearly outlined playground behaviour management plan according to whether the incident is of a minor or major in nature. This management plan includes procedures and consequences. As a leadership team we track and monitor playground incidents looking for patterns and following up ongoing issues.

Parent Teacher Learning Conversations

Our first formal Parent/Teacher Learning Conversations were held this week. The meetings were a timely opportunity for teachers to discuss the learning progress of children with families. A strong partnership between the school and the families is key to a student’s success and staff value working together with families to support the learning journey of children in their care.

School Council Annual Reporting Meeting

The Annual Reporting Meeting will be held on Wednesday 6th March at 7.00pm. If you are interested in attending the A.G.M., please click on the link: https://www.trybooking.com/BYQQD

Pupil Free Days for 2022

School Council has approved the following Curriculum Days for Staff Professional Learning:

Date	Focus
Friday June 10th	Community Understanding and Safety Training (CUST)
Monday December 19th	Staff Professional Learning
Tuesday December 20th	2023 Planning

Further information about the focus for each curriculum day will be outlined in upcoming newsletters.

There will be no school for children on those days.

Daylight Savings

Daylight Savings ends this weekend. Remember to put your clocks back an hour on Saturday night so that you are on time for Sunday. Enjoy the extra hour sleep in.

Road Safety Reminders

Please reinforce with your child/ren the importance of road safety and following the rules to ensure that they are safe and to build their road safety awareness:

Always use the school crossing when coming to and from school
If there isn’t a crossing, always look right, left then right again.
Always wear a helmet when riding a bike or scooter.
Bikes and scooters must be walked across school crossings, along Honour Avenue and on school grounds.

Thank you for your support.

Almost Holiday time

We are incredibly grateful that we have been able to have a full term of onsite learning – the first since Term 4 2019. On behalf of the staff I would like to thank you all for the continued monitoring and testing of your children throughout the term and prompt communication to the school if there is a positive case or a need to isolate. We will communicate further updates as they come to hand.

School finishes next Friday 8th April at 2:30p.m and we start back on Tuesday 26th April.

Congratulations to:

Hannah 34H and Tom on their engagement

There will be a special assembly on Friday 8th April at 9:00am to say farewell to the HWPS community and to wish everyone a happy holiday.

Parents are more than welcome to attend.

Warm regards,

Glenys

Melbourne Girls College